Implementation
of the Presidents Management Agenda and Presentation of
the FY 2003 Budget Request

In August
the President launched a Management Reform Agenda targeted to
"address the most apparent deficiencies where the opportunity
to improve performance is the greatest." Working with the Presidents
Management Council, the Office of Management and Budget has developed
standards for success in each of the five government-wide initiatives:
Strategic Management of Human Capital; Expanded Electronic Government;
Competitive Sourcing; Improved Financial Performance; and Budget
and Performance Integration. We are in the process of evaluating
with each department and agency where they stand against these
standards as of September 30, 2001, the completion of the
latest fiscal year. This initial evaluation will serve as our
baseline for tracking improvement as we implement the Presidents
Management Reform Agenda.

An Executive
Branch Management Scorecard will be used to show both how well
a department or agency is executing the management initiatives,
and where it scores at a given point in time against the overall
standards for success. This scorecard will be provided to you
and the President on a regular basis. The scorecard employs a
simple grading system: green for success, yellow for mixed results,
and red for unsatisfactory. There will be two sides of the scorecard:
current status against the standards for success, and progress
in implementing the initiatives. The progress side will track
whether a departments work plan for the initiatives is being
successfully executed according to established timetables. Clearly,
the September 30th baseline will show a lot of poor scores
for current status, reflecting the state of the government we
inherited.

Recognizing
the importance of good management to the efficient and economic
delivery of desired results, it is also our intention to devote
a significant portion of the Presidents FY 2003 budget request
to a discussion of the management issues affecting each department
or agency. Further complementing the traditional attention to
resources and funding requests will be a greater focus on specific
program performance and effectiveness. The performance component
of the presentation will build upon the discussions OMB had with
each department or agency this past spring.

I have attached
an illustrative sample of the Executive Branch Management Scorecard,
together with the standards for success for the government-wide
initiatives. My expectation is that the baseline assessments will
be completed by the end of November, in time for our discussions
on your FY 2003 budget. This should allow for a presentation of
the overall scorecard to the President in early December. Please
direct any questions concerning this material to your OMB Resource
Management Office.